The colour of the sky
by GalliaDavia
Summary: Another idea how things might have developped after the final battle. Jake&Neytiri, many doomed alive.
1. Chapter 1

After working on "shades of blue" for a while, I realized that some decisions I had taken kept me from using some very nice ideas as things would have contradicted each other badly. This is just another try to use all these left behind ideas finally :-)

Things start (again) close to the end of the final battle between the RDA and the Na´vi, introducing Cassidy McConahay as an additional, not original character. Just to keep you in line - several doomed alive

* * *

Cassidy sat at the edge of her chair, staring at the readings in front of her. Her fingers clutched the edge of the console in front of her, so hard that her nails had started splintering.

The lab had fallen silent around her. Assistants and technicians, colleagues as well as merely familiar faces, barely dared to breath.

The audio line had finally failed some minutes ago. So they had to watch the horrible pictures sent back to the base by Quaritch´s aircrafts in an even more awkward silence. Their qualitiy got worse every minute, caused by Pandora´s many natural sources of interference as well as by the shrinking number of still functional cameras and com devices. One of the computer freaks around had hacked himself right into Quaritch´s usually quite carefully protected surveillance system and at first, Cassidy had been both grateful and desperate to be at least able to watch what was going on instead of having to wait until Quaritch might have deigned to tell them about it.

The pictures still continued to flicker over the large screen above their heads, but Cassidy didn´t notice them anymore.

Seconds ago, one of the scientific surveillance systems the scientists had hidden from Quaritch for days by now on their own part, had went down.

Cassidy stared down at the display, at the energy levels that had went down to zero by now. Red lights, blinking constantly, kept repeating their message.

_System failure._

There was no sign of any energy back up starting up, no way to access the surveillance system of the link pod, not even a way to find out if the mobile lab´s com or life support system probably still worked. No sign that any system out there was still at least existing.

"Cassidy", Max whispered right next to her, touching her shoulder carefully.

She didn´t react.

"We don´t know what´s happening out there", her colleague told her. "There is no way of knowing what´s going on."

She mused that she and Max had so far been the only ones who had realized what this most probably meant. She looked up to over the faces of the gathered people quickly.

"I think we know quite good what just happened", she whispered, getting up to her feet.

Max became more agitated.

"Where the hell you´re going ?" he asked. "We should stay out of these military guys´ way!"

Cassidy McConahay didn´t listen. She passed everybody else present like in trance, heading for the exit. The doors opened automatically for her and closed behind her with a low buzz.

"Cassidy!" Max shouted behind her.

She had realized quickly that Jake had been nothing like his brother. She had realized it the moment she had met him for the first time, and had realized it painfully every time she had encountered him during the last months again. They might have looked similarly, but there personalities couldn´t have been more different.

She had used to think like that at least.

Right now, she realized that there had undeniable been things the twins had had in common besides their looks.

The stubbornness, for example. The straightforwardness.

Cassidy went down the empty hallway. She stumbled and had to reach out for the wall to regain her balance.

Pictures of them mixed up behind her forehead, pictures of a doctor and a marine, a lover and a friend, a colleague and the one who had come to Pandora as a substitute. The small differences which had stood out to her so clearly the day Jake had finally arrived on Pandora suddenly started to blur within her memory. Two only slightly different faces melted into one in her mind´s eye.

She only needed some seconds to pull herself together again.

She had lost the man she had loved years ago, due to the credit of some greedy bastards. Now, with the mobile lab destroyed, she had lost another man so similar to the one she had loved and though she had always been painfully aware of the differences, she somehow felt like she had not only lost Jake right now, but Tom again as well.

And losing Jake meant facing the end of their small revolution as well in addtion.

She reached the door to her cramped quarters and went inside.

She couldn't accept that Jake should have died for nothing as well.


	2. Chapter 2

„Jake!"

Neytiri´s voice sounded shrill and unnatural in her own ears.

As soon as she had managed to enter the badly damaged lab container, she noticed the lifeless body on the floor.

"Jake ?" Her voice broke down to a scared whisper, unsure if it was really him.

She was over him in an instant, her eyes glancing over the opened link pod, the scattered glass, the many strange devices around him.

He didn´t move. Something was wrong.

Terribly wrong.

It took her racing mind another second, but then she realized the problem. Cursing under her breath, she reached out for one of the masks the dreamwalkers needed to breath, fumbling in horror to put it over the lifeless human´s face.

She finally managed to place it the right way, but things didn´t seem to work.

"Help me, mother", she begged Eywa, fear and despair rising inside her. She stared down at the unknown and still so familiar face. There was no doubt about who she was facing.

"Don´t leave me now, Jake, not now", she whispered, reaching out to check for where she would have been able to feel at least a Navi´s pulse.

A sudden convulsion shook his body. The unexpected move made her flinch at first.

Jake gasped desperately for air.

"Jake !" she whispered again, helplessly focusing on his face.

His body jerked again. He coughed and the mask steamed up from the inside. He reached weakly out for something at the bottom of the mask. With any will power and control over his limbs he had left, he succeeded activating the filtering system of the exopack. The glass became clear again.

For a single moment, they only looked at each other. Two people who had become closer than he had ever thought it were possible. Still, in some way, they had never met in person.

His voice sounded hoarse and strangely muffled by the mask when he finally spoke, but she understood the whispered words nevertheless.

"I see you."

She stared down at his face, into his strangely miscoloured looking eyes.

"I see you", she whispered back, caressing his face.

Jake relaxed a little bit, trying to steady his breathing, trying to fight down the agitation he still felt. His lungs burned and he felt dizzy to the point of sickening. At the same time, he

tried to focus on her face above him, the sight of her the greatest thing he could have hoped for. His body hurt from the fall, at least the parts he was still able to feel. For once, his handicap seemed to come in handy.

Suddenly, his thinking became clearer and he flinched, turning his head. "What about..", he croaked. She followed his gaze, then forced him gently to look at her again.

"He´s dead", she said. Even now, her voice didn´t sound cold or angry. Just concerned.

"Neytiri", he whispered, reaching out himself to return her gesture and touch her face. She watched his move, as if she was unsure what to expect from his touch. She wasn´t sure if she had expected it to feel strange or different. Instead, it felt only so right.

"For now, we are safe", she muttered.

As if fate had only waited for them to believe it, the power generator at the end of the container exploded with a nasty bang.

Neytiri threw herself down, covering Jake´s body with her own. Pieces of glass and debris rained down on them.

"You´re alright ?" he asked as soon as she had recovered from the shock of the explosion. She only nodded.

"We got to get out of here", he told her. She half turned, noticing the flames leaking out of the burst generator casing. She hurried to get back to her feet, offering him a hand to help him up.

Their eyes met. She realized belatedly that there was a problem. Jake had managed to bring himself in a sitting position and looked now up to her. It crossed his mind that there were still too many things he should probably have told her about long before.

"Looks like you´ll have to give me a hand with this", he muttered.

***

Jake insisted on what he thought of as a safe distance to the lab containers. He was not sure if there was more stuff left that might blow up. Neytiri had set him carefully down there and had hurried back to the clearance where Jake´s avatar still lay sprawled right next to Quaritch´s robot suit and the Colonel´s mortal remains. He had to watch her trying hard to bring his Navi body out of open sight, damned to idleness. She then returned to him, bringing the oversized machine gun he had used with him as well as a smaller handgun and knife that she had picked from Quaritch.

Jake touched her arm the moment she handed him the handgun and the knife.

"Are you alright ?" he asked. "No injuries ?"

She glanced at him and shook her head. "Only scratches", she told him, bending forward to check on the weapon like he had explained to her in the last hours before the battle, but he reached out for her arm again.

"If he had killed you…."

His voice trailed off.

She smiled to him and covered his much smaller hand with her own.

"But he didn´t."

Studying his real face for a moment, she found that she could read him as easily as usual. There was the same expression of concern and worry on his face, the same rush of feelings in his eyes.

"Have you heard from anyone ?" he asked gravely, gesturing towards the earpiece and transmitter band she still wore.

She shook her head.

"Any idea how things looked at last ?"

"No."

Jake frowned. From what they knew, they could still be in imminent danger.

"Can you change back to your…" She broke off, realizing that he already was in his real body.

"Avatar ?" he offered. She only nodded.

Jake shook his head. "Not from here. The pod´s damaged and there´s no energy to run any of the other ones. No chance."

"We´ll have to find the others", she said.

"Yeah, but how ?" His eyes lingered on the motionless body of the Thanator out there on the clearing. He stared at the huge predator, then at the woman besides him. "Wait a second!" he muttered.

"Zeze got shot", she told him.

The expression on his face changed from surprise to sympathy. He didn´t want to imagine the painful experience.

"You crashed ?"

"She brought me down safely."

Jake was grateful to hear that. Still, it didn´t solve the problem they were facing right now. Unable to link with the avatar, he couldn´t call for his own Ikran or the Toruk.

Neytiri´s ears picked something up and she lifted her head a little, her eyes immediately searching the sky through the canopy of leaves above them.

"What is it ?" he muttered, already regretting that he have would have to rely on his rather limited human senses for the moment.

Then he heard it himself.

A shrill shriek, followed by a darker war cry.

They exchanged a glance.

"Help!" she muttered, tilting her head back to answer.

The Ikran circling above them repeated his call, so did the warrior at his back. Jake was again forced to sit back and wait while Neytiri crossed the clearance again. Only one of the hunters had chosen to land. He recognized him as Kareeth, a friend.

He dismounted the Ikran and turned to Neytiri.

"What´s the situation ?" she asked.

"The leading ship crashed", he told her. "It smashed down close to the tree of souls. There´s a lot of fire." He had eyed her up quickly. His eyes fell on the dead predator right next to him and on Quaritch´s body.

"She brought me here", Neytiri told him.

"Eywa is with us", he told her faithfully. "I´ve seen turn all kinds of creatures against the sky people." Then he caught sight of the lifeless avatar. His features darkened. Neytiri touched his arm. "He is alive." She turned her head to where they had taken cover, silently thanking Eywa that she had sent Kareeth of all people to find them here. She knew that he wouldn´t hesitate to help, even under the somewhat special circumstances. Still, she saw the shock on his face when he grasped the situation.

"We need to get back to the others", she told him. "But I fear it will be difficult. Jake can´t return to his …other body right now."

Kareeth frowned. He had had no idea that the dreamwalkers were able to switch from one body to another until Jake had told them about how it worked only days ago. Still, he signalled his fellow hunters to stand by, then followed Neytiri to the trees.

Kneeling down at Jakes side, he reached out to touch the human´s shoulder. "Brother", he greeted him lowly.

Jake felt deep relief inside. Unable to reach up to the Navi´s shoulder, he simply touched Kareeth´s arm to return the gesture.

"How are we doing ?" he asked.

Kareeth looked at him for a moment, irritated that it was in fact a member of exactly the people he had been fighting minutes ago that asked him that question – and that from how he had formulated the question, he didn´t seem to care for the sky people, but only for the Na´vi.

"I think for now, we will prevail."

Jake frowned for a second at the sententious words, but felt deep relief as well.

"I am glad to see you alive", he told the other man.

Kareeth nodded, glancing at Jake´s body for a moment. It was quite obvious that they wouldn´t be able to transport Jake on the back of an Ikran if he couldn´t use his legs in any way. And Kareeth didn´t dare to hope on that from the looks of them.

"I take it your legs don´t carry your weight ?" the Na´vi warrior inquired.

Jake nodded.

"Is there any strength left in them ?" his Navi brother asked in addition.

"Neither strength nor control. I don´t feel them anymore."

For some reason, Jake was glad that it was Kareeth asking the questions, not Neytiri, though she listened attentively.

Kareeth frowned. "Can´ya is much too unpredictable to carry a second hunter", he stated, referring to his own Ikran. "But even if she wasn´t, it wouldn´t be safe for you to try." Jake nodded again. It was quite obvious that things wouldn´t work like that.

"Take Neytiri back to the others", he suggested.

Neytiri´s face changed from a frown to an indignant stare. "We won´t leave you here."

"You need to go back", he argued. "People should see at least one of us return. I will be safe here."

He could tell that she didn´t like the idea. He didn´t like it either, but saw no other possibility right now. He had also to admit that leaving him here now wouldn´t solve the problem of transporting him in general. But there were more urgent matters to think about right now.

"Who´s leading our people ?" he asked, aware of Neytiri tensing up right next to him.

"Antis. Tsu´tey is alive, but he was injured."

Neytiri let out a breath, closing her eyes for a second. Jake reached automatically out for her hand.

"How did you know where to find us anyway ?" he asked then.

"Tru´dy told us", Kareeth answered. "She suspected the Colonel to come here to try and kill you."

"We lost contact", Jake muttered.

"Her flying device was hit", Kareeth told him. "But one of the hunters from the coast managed to save her."

Jake raised his eyebrows at these words. The Na´vi living along the coast were even more reckless Ikran riders than the Omaticaya. He turned to Neytiri again. "Go. Take care of our people."

"I am not going to leave you here", she insisted. Jake might have been fairly safe if he had been in his avatar body, but in his much smaller and fragile looking human body and unable to run or even stand, she feared for his life even without further human enemies around.

"Go - now!" he told her. "Try to get a message through to Max or Norm. They will find a way to pick me up here."

"I have Maran and Elia with me", Kareeth said. "I think Elia´s Ikran might be able to carry the both of you."

Jake thanked the fellow hunter silently for his support. Neytiri still looked quite uncomfortable.

"I will signalise to Elia to land", Kareeth said, watching Neytiri for any reaction. Her lips pressed tightly together, she nodded quiet agreement. Jake suppressed a sigh of relief. Kareeth left for the clearance.

"I will need your help", she told him. "I don´t know what to do with the rest of the mining people."

"Try to make our people gather", he advised her lowly. "They are outnumbered and surely in shock. They didn´t expect us to fight back so hard."

"I´ll find a way to pick you up." Her eyes mirrored discomfort as well as concern.

He squeezed her fingers gently, trying to encourage her.

"I´m not planning on going anywhere", he told her with a weak grin.


	3. Chapter 3

Cassidy touched the button of the intercom.

"Dr McConahay to Mr. Selfridge."

She waited. Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes.

"McConahay to Selfridge – please respond."

The intercom panel stayed dark and silent. She stared at the panel in front of her, clenching her fists. She hated to do this.

She changed the channel, typing in another code.

"Parker, this is Cassidy !"

Unnerved, she pressed the button almost immediately again.

"Parker, this is Cassidy - please respond !"

She had almost lost faith when the display lighted up. The speaker gave a soft buzzing sound.

"What the hell is it." To say that one could hear the tension ringing through the manager´s voice would have been the understatement of the year. She knew the man good enough to know that he was rather close to panic than in a bad mood. Still, she felt a somehow sickening kind of relief that he had finally answered.

"Parker, it´s me. This is an emergency. Please, I need you here."

"Cassidy, this is really not the…"

"Please !" she whispered. "I need you to see this!"

"We´re in the middle of a war and you are telling me you got an emergency _worse_ than that ?" he barked from the other end of the com line.

Cassidy grimaced.

"For the last time, Parker, this is _serious_. We may have a much bigger problem right in here then out there and if anything should go wrong with Quaritch´s master plan, you´ll be the one people will turn to! Believe me, you would badly regret not having had this information before! I need you to have a look at this right now!"

There was a pause. Cassidy rubbed one hand over her neck and realized the thin layer of sweat on her skin.

"Don´t tell me that some of your science freaks are trying to run riot."

Cassidy´s eyes grew wide. The last thing she needed was Selfridge entering the research complex with a bunch of mercs.

"It´s nothing like that", she told him, feverishly trying to sound calm. "But I checked through the last health checks. You won´t like this."

"_Health checks ?_ Can´t this…"

This time, she interrupted him harshly.

"Which part of _emergency_ did you fail to understand ?" she barked. "Trust me with this, Parker, I mean it. Meet me at the ready room down here, nobody will disturb us there! Don´t be a goddamn idiot! McConahay out."

She interrupted the com line, imagining the manager´s struggle - staying at the control room for some kind of sick leadership thing Quaritch kept preaching about or doing the only right thing his mind yelled at him to do – leaving that birdcage up there, telling people that it was

inevitable and happened just in case, of course.

The scientist let her forehead rest against the cool metallic surface of the wall for a moment, taking deep breath after breath - desperately hoping that she was going to do the right thing.

Some ten minutes later, Selfridge rounded the last corner on his way to the small medical ready room, accompanied by a single guard.

Cassidy stood in front of one of the supply cabinets which contained different medical supplies, checking through some sort of list.

Selfridge eyed her up for a moment. He had always liked the dark haired slim built doctor a great deal better than her boss, Dr. Augustine. For her calm nature, her dreamy grey eyes, her nevertheless matter of fact work habits. He couldn´t completely suppress a grin, not even now. And definitely, definitely for her great legs, he added privately.

She turned a little, realizing him standing by the door. He finally stepped in, throwing her a jovial smile.

She returned it, though her own one fading quickly. She wondered only shortly if he was really that cold blooded or if he only tried to hide his own uptightness, smiling to her while people got killed out there to guarantee his pay check.

"How are we doing ?" she asked, trying to pretend that she didn´t already know.

"Quaritch knows what he´s doing", he answered, his tone harsher than they both had expected. "What´s this emergeny ?"

She crossed the small room and picked a data pad up from the desk.

"You are aware of the fact that nothing will be like it was before when this is over", she said.

His glanced around, then at her again, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

There it was.

_Nervousness._

"We´ll see", he muttered.

She waited for a moment if he would add anything. When he remained silent, she handed him the pad.

"Have a look at these test results", she told him, her face serious. "This could develop into a serious problem!"

He took the pad from her.

"Gimme the short version", he commanded gruffly, taking the pad from her.

Cassidy felt as if she could almost smell it.

_Fear._

She had stepped to his side, the injector she had hidden in the pocket of her labcoat ready at hand.

He glanced at her at his side, noticing the shaky gesture she caught a strand of hair with. Their eyes met.

"I know you don´t like this, but trust me", he told her suddenly. "We´ll be safe. Our mission will be safe."

_Doubt._

Cassidy wasn´t too surprised to discover that. Still, she fought hard not to slap him. The guy had never been a soldier and she didn´t feel quite brave herself. But the RDA manager just proved again that he was the worst kind of a greedy bastard.

"This time, you´ll have to trust _me_", she told him.

Selfridge felt the cool touch of the injector´s tip only for a moment. The injector discharged with a low buzzing sound.

He whirled around, grabbing her by the collar of her labcoat with surprising force, staring at her. "What the hell…." he started.

"You´d better lay down", Cassidy advised him, watching his gaze getting unfocused.

"Fuckin´… " he managed to mutter, stumbling, trying to grab hold on something. He failed, breaking down.

She managed only barely to catch him and betted him carefully down to the floor. Hurrying across the roam and behind the desk, she grabbed the tranquilizer gun she had brought with her. Squatting behind the desk, she took another deep breath. Then she called out for the guard waiting on the other side of the door.

Max woke from his trance when the alarm went off.

"Emergency shutdown!" a computerized female voice told. "Viral contamination. Please head for the next decontamination room!"

Emergency bulkheads slammed shut, separating the science complex from the rest of the base.

The others around turned, looking at each other, rather confused than scared.

"Contamination alert", the computerized voice told again. "Please keep calm and head for the next decontamination room."

"_Contamination alert_ ?" Heather Darrigan asked in disbelief. The virologist stepped besides Max to have a look at the status displays. "Right _now_ ? Why can´t I believe that ?"

The intercom blinked and bleeped.

"`Conahay to Patil."

Max bent forward and pushed a button.

"Max here. What´s going on ?"

Cassidy grinned grimly, though she knew that the channel transmitted only audio.

"Well, looks like an emergency shutdown, doesn´t it ? Unfortunately, Parker has possibly gotten infected as well."

Max needed a second.

"Wait, wait, what are you telling me ? He´s with you ?"

"He is", she confirmed. "And he´s unfortunately somehow…incapacitated at the moment."

"What the hell are you up to ?" Max asked, breathless.

Cassidy frowned, glad that none of the others could see her face right now. She had delayed further planning to a time after the meeting with Parker.

"Cass ?" asked Max, sounding desperate.

She sighed silently.

"Don´t ask questions, Max! Get me a link ready!" She frowned for a second. "And have somebody find a bin of blue paint!"

* * *

Late in the afternoon, Jake found himself in trouble to stay awake. Pandora´s heat was hard to bear for humans. His clothes were soaked by sweat by now and he had run out of water a while ago.

The former marine had spent the last hours waiting for _someone_ to show up. He had been aware of the fact that the ones to arrive would possibly not be the ones he would have liked to see. Nonetheless, he had been more than aware of the fact that if nobody would ever come to pick him up, he would never leave that goddamn giant piece of a flying rock on his own, not to mention alive.

He had tried hard to ignore looking at the lifeless avatar resting only some feet away from him in the grass. If the old jarhead bastard hadn´t smashed half of the lab container, he would have been able to get linked again. To rejoin his people.

His people.

Jake let the back of his head rest against the tree behind him.

His people. Allowing himself to close his eyes brought only pictures of the battle back to him. Well, at first. But after a while, other pictures as well.

Pictures of her. The woman he loved. A blue skinned goddess. An alien. She had been so touchy and wary in the beginning, and she had had all reason. He had been an idiot to lie to these people, to betray them, betray her, for a so called mission he had agreed to without having all the facts. He had cursed his blindness and foolishness several times over the last few weeks. Neytiri had told him only hours ago that he had learned to see. Still, like the child she had called him so many times, he had been blind for the inevitable consequences of his doing.

Jake opened his eyes again. He felt more sweat trickling down his temples and back.

_Goddamn idiot__ you are! _

It had been so much easier to enjoy the new found freedom than to _think_.

And he had allowed himself to get lost in the dream.

Throwing the avatar another dark look, he sighed in frustration.

For uncounted times, he had wondered which of his friends had survived. _If_ some of them had survived. How many of the tribe had died. If Neytiri and Kareeth had ever made it back to the others safely.

Things would never be the same after today.

He reached out to check the weapons he had tried to arrange in front of him in a way that would at least allow him to take one or two possible attackers with him. If life would choose to be a bitch again, he would be ready.

The dream was over anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

Though he hadn´t been fighting in his real body, Jake felt drained. Tired and knocked up. And whatever one was supposed to do after a battle, being forced to sit tight, which could be taken literally in his case, was definitely the wrong thing. And the final spark of faith that had been left in him had slowly started to turn into doubts.

Eventually, he felt anger rise. He tried to feed it, push it, deciding that anger was in the end possibly much more useful than fear.

He recalled the old saying his father had liked to use and tried to hope for the best – silently preparing for the worst.

The hours stretched, testing his patience, his will. Beyond the canopy of leaves, it was hard to tell where the sun stood – he would probably just be sure if darkness would finally fall. But he hoped heartily that he wouldn´t have to wait much until then – or even longer.

He heard the approaching aircraft long before he could see it. At first, he wasn't even sure if he had really heard something or if his mind had started to play tricks on him.

His muscles tensed painfully the second he realized that he wasn´t imagining things.

Then he caught a glimpse of something large and powerful up there, moving faster and quite versatile.

Jake´s fingers clenched around his gun while he tried to brace himself for whatever was going to happen next. It was impossible to say if the banshee up there was wearing a rider at its back or not or if there was possibly a fight going on. For a single desperate moment, he wondered if it was possibly his own Ikran who had come looking for him. Seconds later, he called himself a fool for his own childish hopes.

The roaring of the aircraft´s enginges were still getting louder.

The pessimist within him didn´t dare to hope while the optimist wouldn´t accept to surrender. To his own surprise, he lent his head back and gave a drawn-out war cry. He had never tried it in his human body, not the Na´vi way, and it sounded strange and somehow wrong in his own ears, the sound muffled by the mask he needed to breath. He called himself a fool again, but while he started to lose heart, he realized helplessly that he had just wanted to do it for some reason.

Maybe as it was maybe the last thing he would be able to do as a free man.

Jake couldn´t believe it.

At first, he had barely been able to hear the shrill answer over the roaring of the helicopter´s engines. But then realiziation dawned in him.

Somebody had answered with a hunter´s cry.

It sent a shiver all over his skin and pushed his adrenaline level to a peak.

He watched the following landing maneuver with steadily growing surprise. The Samson rolled and lurched about in a rather worrying way while the pilot tried desparately to stabilize it. The Samson rose again for another try, only to land rather roughly. Jake noticed that the hull was marked by light blue handprints- three digits as well as four.

He suddenly struggled hard to get into a better position to get to see these arrivals.

Jake wondered if relief had ever tasted sweeter before. Three months ago, he had silently cursed the scientist´s bones for a hundred times. Right now, there were only few people he would have preferred to see.

"What the hell is going on around here ?" he asked instead of a greet.

Norm didn´t answer, but got down to his knees and hugged the surprised ex marine.

"I´ve never been that glad to see you, you know", Norm told him, releasing Jake slightly to check up on Jake for injuries. Jake, dumbstruck for a second, only grinned sheepishly.

"Something like that crossed my mind as well", he answered belatedly.

Norm looked at Jake for a moment, then broke into heartily laughter.

"What the hell´s so funny ?" Jake inquired.

"It´s just you and me, Jake, you know", Norm answered, relieved that he had found the friend alive and obviously even unhurt. "Just gimme the normal Jake instead of the honourable Toruk Makto!"

Jake cocked his head to catch a glimpse of the pilot.

"Who´s with you ?"

"Oh. It´s Kara."

"Kara ? Microbe Kara ?" Jake asked, referring to the rather wallflower like scientologist he had met at the lab some times. "Why did you bring her ? Who´s your pilot ?"

Norm laughed again – it sounded a little bit nervous this time.

"Actually, I am the pilot."

Jake´s eyes grew wide.

"_You ?_"

He wondered if he should evaluate his luck again.

"Me!" Norm confirmed. "Grace insisted in some basic piloting lessons, remember ?"

"You can only fly on visual out here !" Jake contradicted.

Norm raised his eyebrows. He looked taken aback.

"Well, we had some help."

Norm gestured vaguely towards the sky.

"Somebody sent you a tour guide ?" asked Jake with a smile.

Norm grinned again.

"Somebody did!"


End file.
